Few people have had a front-row seat to the evolution of the Australian startup ecosystem quite like Geoff McQueen.
He’s been a founder, investor, and mentor for more than two decades, long before “startups” became a cultural mainstay. Geoff helped shape what would become Silicon Beach in Sydney, regularly joining meetups in the late 2000s that brought together a small but determined group of builders who believed that great tech companies could be born in Australia.
By the time Startmate launched in 2010, Geoff was already on the ground floor.
“Niki called and said, ‘We’re doing this thing called Startmate, do you want to be involved?’” Geoff laughs. “I said yes immediately. I’ve been here ever since.”
Since then, Geoff has built and exited multiple companies, including his most recent, Accelo, a cloud-based client work management platform tailored specifically for the professional services vertical. After selling the company in 2023, he turned his energy back toward mentoring and recently launched a new venture, Ascendius, a “product factory”. Their first product is TeamScore.io, a platform designed to improve visibility and performance in distributed, remote, and hybrid teams.
“Remote work is working for about 40% of folks,” Geoff says. “But if we can’t close the performance gap with better management, companies are going to force a return to the office. We’ve created technology to make remote work work.”
Alongside building, Geoff leads the B2B Stream in the Startmate Accelerator, helping founders do one thing better: connect with customers.
Why Geoff mentors early-stage founders
“Mentoring is a give-get,” Geoff says.
“The ‘give’ is obvious; it feels good to help people. But the ‘get’ is underrated.”
After 20 years of building and investing, Geoff says mentoring keeps him sharp.
“Every time I tell a founder to ship before they’re ready or to talk to customers more often, I have to look in the mirror. It’s a reminder to take my own advice.”
He believes mentoring is less about transferring wisdom and more about staying close to the fundamentals.
“Helping founders forces you to revisit the first principles that matter most. You don’t get that kind of reflection when you’re just operating.”
Why founders need to talk to customers (a lot)
If there’s one theme Geoff returns to again and again, it’s customer obsession.
“The main reason to talk to customers is because it’s so easy to fall in love with your own idea,” he says. “And your friends will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear.”
But Geoff is quick to clarify that listening doesn’t mean doing everything customers ask for. It’s about understanding what truly drives their decisions.
He often introduces founders to the concept of “revealed preference”, the gap between what people say they want and what they actually do.
“People say they want to eat better, but then they grab a burger,” Geoff explains.
“It’s the same with customers. Their stated preference is often rational or aspirational, but their revealed preference is emotional and what they do. You need to test whether what you’re hearing is real.”
The only way to uncover that truth, he says, is through doing. Shipping with velocity, constant testing, learning, and iterating.
“Don’t theorise. Ship, observe, and adjust.”
What separates great founders from the rest?
After mentoring hundreds of startups, Geoff has a sharp sense for the patterns that lead to success.
“The best founders are self-critical but not in a self-destructive way,” he says.
“They have strong self-awareness and a bias to action.”
But there’s one quality that stands above the rest: comfort with uncertainty.
“Entrepreneurs have to be comfortable living in the unknown,” Geoff says.
“You don’t know what the market will want, or whether you’ll run out of money. You can’t make it certain, and trying to do so defeats the point. The best founders are comfortable making progress even when the path isn’t clear, confident that they’ll find a way.”
How to get the most out of the Startmate Accelerator
“Come in with your mind open,” Geoff says.
“If you’re too attached to your first idea, you’ll miss the opportunity.”
He encourages founders to treat Startmate like a laboratory, a place to experiment, get unfiltered feedback, and iterate fast.
“The startups that take too long to ship? You can see it. They lose momentum. The ones that win are the ones that learn fast from mentors and from the market.”
In his B2B Stream, Geoff helps founders think differently about selling.
“Founders need to sell, but they don’t need to become salespeople,” he says.
“They need to sell their vision, to connect what they’re building to the value the buyer cares about.”
That requires empathy, not aggression.
“Understand the buyer’s journey. What are they trying to achieve? What’s stopping them? When you see the world through their eyes, sales becomes natural.”
How Geoff thinks about distribution
When it comes to go-to-market, Geoff is refreshingly honest: it’s hard, and getting harder.
“Cold calls and emails are scorched earth,” he says.
“No one answers the phone anymore. But some founders in this cohort have found success by being creative, sending thoughtful gifts to a tight ICP, or building reciprocity through personal connection.”
He’s also a believer in the slow power of content.
“If you can build an audience around your expertise, it compounds. It just takes longer than people expect.”
Still, his ultimate advice is simple:
“The best distribution strategy is to build something people actually want. Word of mouth is still undefeated.”
How founders should (and shouldn’t) use AI
Geoff sees AI as a powerful accelerator — but one that requires judgment.
“Don’t delegate to it,” he warns.
“AI is like an exoskeleton; it makes you faster and stronger, but you still have to steer.”
He’s seen too many people treat it as “fire and forget.”
“You can write ten blog posts ten times faster, sure, but if you don’t edit, it’s off target. It’s still just predicting tokens.”
Geoff’s final word on sales
“Don’t ‘do sales’, build demand,” he says.
That means understanding the buyer’s journey, not pushing your own.
“There’s a lot of sales advice out there focused on what the vendor wants. That’s backwards. Focus on what the buyer wants and how they make decisions.
Why Geoff’s mentorship matters
Ask anyone who’s worked with Geoff, and they’ll tell you the same thing: he helps you see what you’ve been missing.
He blends empathy with precision, the rare mentor who can cut through noise without cutting you down.
“The best thing about Startmate,” Geoff says, “is that founders get to learn from people who’ve already been through the chaos. We’ve made the mistakes, so you can make different ones.”
And that’s the real magic of Startmate’s mentor network: experience, generosity, and the kind of hard-won perspective you can’t Google.
Takeaway for founders
If you’re building something ambitious, Geoff’s advice is simple but transformative:
- Talk to customers constantly.
- Question what people say; watch what they do.
- Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
- Sell your vision by seeing through your buyer’s eyes.
If you’re seeking world-class mentorship to fuel your founder journey. Check out the Accelerator.
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